Lost Memories and Tainted Dreams
by GamerGirl5
Summary: Ichigo encounters a large problem with his hollow self, and Rukia is always there to help him. Who will prevail in the struggle for dominance over Ichigo's body? Will he be able to pull off another victory, or will he succumb to the ever powerful, terrible version of himself.


Hey everyone! This is gonna be my first Bleach fan fiction, so hopefully it goes well. Wish me luck!

_** Ichigo**_

"Ichigo, look over there!" I hear Rukia say, and I look to where she is pointing. There is a very powerful spiritual pressure emanating from where she is pointing, I wonder what it is. I strain to see what it is, but no matter how hard I try, I can't see anything.

"Let's go, Ichigo." She says, and we heard towards the source. As we get there, we see a lone man standing at the edge of the cliff. He turns to look at us as he arrives, and I feel there is something very wrong about his power, though I can't say what it is.

"Ah," he says, his voice silky and deep, "Ichigo Kurosaki, the substitute soul reaper and Rukia Kuchki of squad thirteen. What a surprise to see you here. May we ask what you are doing?" He says to us.

"Who the hell are you?" I say to him, the tone in my voice letting him know that I don't trust him one bit. He smiles, and takes a step towards us.

"Don't tell me you have already forgotten us. Though I guess that should be expected from someone as dense as you…" he says.

"Hey, you bastard. What are you talking about, I've never met you ever before. What are you trying to say?" I'm not sure what this guy is up to, but I can tell it's not good.

"Let us show you, and see if you remember us then." He says, then disappears from my sight. All of a sudden I hear Rukia scream. I turn and see the strange man materialize and grab her then he disappears again.

"Ichigo! Help!" I hear Rukia scream from behind me. I turn once more and see the man standing at the very edge of the cliff, and Rukia on her knees in front of him, wounded.

"You Bastard, Stop!" I yell at him as I rush over to the edge hoping to get there before he sends Rukia plummeting to her death. He smiles at me and then turns back to Rukia.

"Bakudō number one, Sai." He mutters quietly. I see a light shoot out and bind tightly around Rukia, and at that moment he smiles at me and kicks her off the ledge. I know the weak Kido won't last long on her, but she might not be able to recover soon enough, I need to get to her fast.

"Rukia!" I yell, as I arrive and reach out for her. The kido breaks and she reaches her hand out for me also, but we're too far apart, and her finger slip out of Reach. "Rukia!" I yell and lean further over the edge, once again reaching out for her, and once again not getting her hand.

"Ichigo!" I hear her scream once more as she plummets into the darkness. I cannot see her anymore, nor can I sense her spiritual pressure, what is down there. She can't be dead can she?

"You bastard," I say as I turn to face the mysterious enemy, "Who the hell are you, and what did you do to her."

"She will be swallowed by the darkness and her spirit will be consumed, there is no way for you to save her. She is already dead." He says.

"No, no, no, no," I say, it can't be true. I reach out to find even a little sliver if her spirit energy, but I feel nothing. "RUKIA!"

_** Rukia**_

I hear a loud blast echo from Ichigo's room, and I quickly sit up and look around the room to see if there are people here also trying to get me, I mean why else would he be fighting? I see nothing. What the hell is that Idiot up to? I get up and walk to his room. I sense his spiritual pressure though it doesn't feel like his, it feels like the aura of his hollow self. But why would he need to hollowfy? I arrive at his door and attempt to open it, but it is locked.

"Ichigo! Let me in. Who's fighting against you?" I yell in to him, but I can't hear any fighting coming from in there so I don't think he's in his room anymore. I wait a little longer and then head towards the front door, and go outside. Ichigo isn't out there, but I feel that he is very close to the house. I go around and look at the side of the house where his room is, and see a huge hole in the wall, like he or whoever he's fighting blasted a hole straight through the wall. He could be in a lot of trouble.

I see a flash of a person a little bit down the street and I watch to see if I can see anyone else. No, just one person. I need to find Ichigo. I run down the street, following his spiritual pressure until I arrive at an empty, run down building. See another flash of a person up on top other the building and I feel Ichigo's spiritual pressure. I jump up to the top of the building and see him. He is hollowfied.

"Ichigo!" I yell to him. He turns and looks at me, his golden and black eyes swiftly scan me looking for a form of threat. "Ichigo, I need you to calm down. There is no one here. Whoever it was left, now turn back into a human." He just stands there, though he does tilt his head to the right side, like he's confused about something. Suddenly he tenses, and his hand flies up and grabs the edge of his hollow mask, as He tries to wretch it off. His hollow-self screaming in something of either pain or anger.

"Ichigo?" I say taking a step back. Then his mask snaps off and he drops it from his hand. I watch it fall to the ground disintegrating right before it meets the ground. I look back to Ichigo and he suddenly passes out onto the ground, his body making a dull thud as it meets very roughly against the roof of the building. Oh, God. Is he alright. I run over to him and flip him onto his back. He's unconscious but other than that I don't see anything wrong with him. I feel his forehead, he's burning up. He must be sick, but I don't know how he would just get sick like that. "Ichigo? Are you okay? Can you hear me, I don't think I can carry you all the way to Urahara's shop. I need you to wake up." I say softly to him. I get no response. Great, I left my communicator at the house so I can't even call Urahara.

"Ichigo?" I say, and I see his left eye. I smile, and take his hand. "What happened?" I ask softly. He just shakes his head and groans. What does that mean? "Can you get up? I need to get you to Urahara, but I can't do it without your help." I hear him groan and he slowly leans up, holding his hand against his forehead, like you would see someone with a headache do.

"Rukia? You're okay?" I hear him ask, though it sounds very weak and sickly coming out from his mouth right now. The question confuses me, why wouldn't I be okay? He's the one who isn't okay.

"Yes, Ichigo. Now let's get going." I tell him again. He nods, and slowly stands, though I can tell he's not very stable. I quickly put my arm around his waist and try to hold as much of his weight as I can, though my small size doesn't really help when trying to hold up such a tall person. I look around really quickly to find a door that we could go through to get to the ground level of this building and I spot one a few yards to our left. I get us going in that direction and open the door, thankful that it wasn't locked.

"Okay, Ichigo, we need to go down some stairs, I need you to be really careful." He mutters a soft 'Ok' and we start down the stairs. Please don't let us trip, I think over and over in my head. Thank God, we reached the bottom of the first set of stairs without much of a problem, just three more to go. We quickly descend down two of them, but on the last on Ichigo tenses up, and I lose my footing.

"No, no!" I scream as we topple down the stairs together, a tangled mess of body parts. When we land, the breath is knocked out of me but I quickly realize that I landed on top of Ichigo. Great, leave it to me to be clumsy enough to fall on to someone who's dying. Actually I pray dying isn't the right word for it.

"Oh my God! Ichigo I'm so sorry I didn't mean to…" I trail off when he opens his eyes. The Iris I glowing gold like it does in his hollow form, but the mask does not seem to be forming, and the usual pitch black that would surrounds the iris is not appearing either.

"Ichigo?" I say, worried for him. He stands and smiles at me. Not a normal smile, but haunted and grim, like it's someone else looking at me.

"This isn't Ichigo," he says "Not right now, but soon it will be. Tell him this when he recovers, Tell him I said to be ready king. Your defenses are weakening and will not last long." With that he laughs and then suddenly falls quiet and falls to the ground. What the hell was that? I've never heard of anything like that happening to anyone.

"Ichigo?" I say warily, not knowing whether to help him or to stay away. Was that his hollow-self taking? That definitely wasn't his voice, I know what Ichigo sounds like, and that wasn't him. He had a higher register of voice, though it did sound really close to Ichigo's voice, but I had a hint of madness, like the person talking could go crazy at any second and kill everything in his path, which I doubt Ichigo would do, but a hollow wouldn't think twice about killing millions of helpless people. I shake the thought out of my head. No, there is no way Ichigo would ever give power over to the hollow, I should know that.

"Rukia?" He says quietly, "What happened?" I snap back to reality and notice that he had sat up, and is looking at me, a confused look on his face. I can still see that he is sweating badly and he seems a bit shaky.

"Nothing, Ichigo. Everything's fine, we're still headed to Urahara's shop so we can see what happened to you. Are you ready to get going again?" I ask him, trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about. I hope Urahara will know what is happening to him. If not I don't know what I am going to do. How can I live without Ichigo if there is something really wrong with him? In the time that he lost his soul reaper powers and he wasn't able to see me anymore, I searched and searched for something that could solve that. I wish I could say that I did it only because he was so helpless and I hated seeing him so worn down and sad, but I did it also because I have feelings for him and there was no way I could go on living without him for that long.

"No, something happened, I know it did." He says, "My hollow-self keeps taking control for short periods of time. Tell me, what did he do this time?" I frown. I was hoping to keep what he said a secret from Ichigo until I could talk to Urahara about what it meant, but I guess I have no choice now.

"He said 'be ready king. Your defenses are weak and will not last long.' What does that mean Ichigo? What's happening to you?" I ask him hoping to pry some answers out of him.

"Rukia, I…" He trails off. I can see that he is struggling on a decision. A decision that will decide whether he wants to share the burden of knowing with me or if he wants to protect me from anything, and leave it to him to handle the problem.

"No, its okay, I have no right to know. I don't have a method of stepping into the depths of your heart without getting it dirty. So I'll wait. When you want to talk, when you think its okay to talk...talk to me." I tell him. He smiles, and looks into my eyes.

"I can tell you without having the fear of burdening you with my problems. I've learned that much from you. You're always here for me when I need your help, you're always telling me that you aren't afraid to help me carry my burdens like I've carried yours and I think this is the first time I've realized exactly what that means. We are friends but we're also much more than that, we're a team, and you are someone I can rely on. In battle I entrust you with my life, and I think outside of battle, I can at least tell you what my problems are. Thank you Rukia for not trying to push the answers out of me, like so many other people have tried to do, and for that I will entrust you with this." He tells me. I blink, wow I never expected him to ever say something like that. So what I say next sounds so brilliant.

"Okay, sure." I say, timidly. He smiles.

"Well, ever since I lost my powers to Byakuya for the very first time, I had to do some training with Urahara, you know. And that is where I gained this hollow version of myself. Or at least that is what I thought foe the longest time. Once though, when I went to train in with Zangetsu I didn't find anyone but the hollow. He challenged me and whoever was the victor, according to him, would then gain control of my body. I won, though barely, that day, and ever since he has been making attempts to gain control, each one harder to fight off then the next. I don't know how much longer I can stay in control, but if I lose control, I don't know what this hollow would do, but I don't think it would be good for anyone to find out." He explains. This answers many of my questions but also brings up so many more. What happens to Ichigo if this hollow takes control? How much longer does Ichigo think he can last against the hollow? Is there anything we can do to prevent it?

All I say is "If you're afraid of losing, just get stronger. If you're afraid of not being able to protect your friends, swear to get stronger until you can protect them. If you're afraid of the hollow inside you... Just get stronger until you can crush him. If you don't want to listen to others, then hold your chin up and yell those words to yourself! That's the kind of man you have been in my heart, Ichigo." His reaction to that is written all over his face. He is surprised.

"You really have that much faith in me? Even after what I told you?" He asks me.

"I don't think you understand Ichigo. I'm not the only one who has faith in you. Chad, Uryu, Orihime, Renji, all the Captains of the soul society and every squad in the thirteen court guard squad knows who you are and what you did for them. They would stop at nothing to help you through your problems. To you our whole existence is owed now. You saved us from Aizen, and many other things. Every one of us has faith in you Ichigo, and we're not afraid to let you know that."

He smiles then, a big smile. Not fake, not one just for show or to prove to someone you're okay when you're not, but a real smile. He slowly stands and moves slowly over to me, his steps unbalanced but determined.

"You, Rukia Kuchki, are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love you." My eyes widen and I'm shocked as he puts his hands around my face and leans in to kiss me. I never thought he would have the same feelings for me. I let myself melt into his kiss and I look deep into his beautiful brown eyes. Right now, everything seems perfect. We slowly brake off the kiss, though we both don't want it to end.

"You, Ichigo, are the best thing that has happened to me too. I never thought I could be happy again, but you proved me wrong." I tell him. He smiles, and leans against the wall. That's when I remember I'm supposed to get him to Kisuke.

"Come on, Ichigo. Let's get out of here." I say. He leans on me for support once more as we head out to Kisuke Urahara's shop.


End file.
